I just had a question regarding meat. Everyone always stresses how sustainable becoming a vegetarian is. I obviously understand the animal rights aspect to becoming a vegetarian, I was just wondering if you could explain more of the environmental benefits of not eating meat to me? Thanks.

-Terry

Answer:

Terry,

Thanks for your question. Yes, there are many environmental benefits to giving up or at least limiting meat consumption. It decreases water use, methane production, the impact of growing animal feed, and much more. It’s not an easy thing to answer quickly, but I’ll try to outline the basics below. I urge you to do some reading on your own, too. The production of animals into meat is an amazing system to learn about, with many shocking twists, turns, and revelations.

If you’re into stats and numbers, this site compares water usage for various items. It says that it takes approximately 15415 litre/kg of water to produce beef and only 257 litre/kg of water for potatoes. I don’t know anyone who only eats potatoes, but there is also quite a difference between chicken and beef.

Then there’s methane, a potent greenhouse gas which contributes to global warming. Cattle emit 80 million tons of methane annually, according to the EPA. And I haven’t even gotten to feed. Most animals are fed a grim mix of genetically modified soy and corn (neither are great for the environment as they require tremendous amounts of chemical sprays to grow), antibiotics (which create drug-resistant superbugs), and hormones.

All of this said, I am not personally a vegetarian for many, many reasons. Though I eat very little meat compared to most meat eaters I know. I have devoted a tremendous amount of research and thought to this decision and I only ever eat local, pastured, well-raised meat. I go into great detail on how and why to source this kind of meat in two of my books. I wrote The Butcher’s Guide to Well-Raised Meat with my butcher. I had interviewed him and his wife previously for The Conscious Kitchen, which has a chapter concisely detailing meat labels, how shop, and other educational resources.

Keep in mind that becoming a vegetarian doesn’t immediately mean your environmental impact is nil. Many vegetarians continue to eat conventionally raised dairy and eggs–the eco-impact of these is far greater than their local, pastured counterparts. And if all of the soy you switch to eating is conventionally raised and coming from, say, China, that has its own not insignificant footprint. There have also been interesting studies done on the safety of soy-based diets. So all of this is worth considering as you weigh the pros and cons of giving up or eating less meat.

I attended a Montclare seminar in April on Greening and I was wondering if you had any suggestions where locally one can recycle breast pumps and children car seats as well as strollers. I found this website that recycles old car seats, strollers, etc. But you have to mail your items to Texas. I was hoping there was something more local. One thought perhaps Montclare can sponsor a green drive for used baby / toddler goods like high chairs, strollers etc. Though we would need to find a place to recycle it all or do a bulk ship to Texas.

Anyway, if you have any suggestions, I appreciate it. Many thanks.

- Karen

Answer:

Hi Karen,

Thanks for reaching out. You’ve hit on a frustrating situation. I share your frustration. There are definitely places to recycle items such as those, but it requires work on your part to do the right thing. Unfortunately, Goodwill does not accept any of these items (anymore), but anyone should technically be able to find a local organization that accepts car seats and strollers. Baby Buggy, for example, is local here in New York City, and it accepts both strollers and car seats–but only if the car seats have never been used (!). Little Essentials also accepts both strollers and car seats.

Recycling breast pumps is a little trickier, to say the least. You can’t donate breast pumps as they really should not be shared from one mother to another; breast milk is a bodily fluid and can contain the sort of things any bodily fluid can contain that aren’t exactly the sort of thing you’d like to share (HIV, hepatitis, etc.)–especially with your infant. My understanding, which I wrote about in The Complete Organic Pregnancy, is that milk can get backed up into the parts of individual home pumps (industrial pumps have mechanisms that block this from happening and that’s why they’re safe to share). The FDA calls them single use products. I asked my intern Kelley to call Medela, a well known single use pump manufacturer, to ask them what they suggest parents do with breast pumps that are past their useful life or are no longer needed. She got the runaround and wound up calling four times! Basically all of the customer service people told her to just throw them out. Sad but true. She asked if they could be recycled and was told that some parts might be recyclable. The only way to find this out, of course, is to check with local municipalities to find out. So you’d have to look and see what number plastic it is and then call 311 here in New York to see if there is a place that takes oddly shaped plastic parts made out of that kind of plastic. It’s not my understanding that these can go in regular NYC plastic recycling bins. It would be a special drop off situation, if anything at all.

I don’t like this response anymore than you like reading it. A while back a group of consumers petitioned Brita to make their water filters recyclable. I think it is high time someone–you?–starts a petition asking breast pump manufacturers to do the same. It should not be this hard to not add tons of breast pumps to the landfill.

I just read a great article you wrote back in 2008. I’m desperately trying to find a non-toxic, albeit vinyl-ish (???) baby doll for my little girl. I like what you stated about Corolle (a brand I’ve heard good things about!) and was wondering, is it just a certain doll that is “safer” or the entire line?

I’d appreciate your input. I’d write more eloquently if I wasn’t completely exhausted from this search!!!!!

Thank you and loves the article

~Carrie

Answer:

Hi Carrie,

Thanks for writing and giving me a chance to clarify. You made me revisit the article you referred to because I don’t recall ever writing or saying that Corolle dolls are a “safer” option. They have claimed to be made of phthalate-free PVC. If this is indeed true, which some tests seemed to show, that’s better than not, I guess, but it’s still PVC . As I explained in the article you mention, environmentalists like to refer to PVC as the poison plastic. It’s that bad.

Here’s what I wrote in 2008:

“…when a brand, say Corolle, gains a reputation in eco circles for making a phthalate-free PVC plastic doll, parents concerned about environmental health flock to it. HealthyToys gives Corolle, which is owned by Mattel but operates independently, medium hazard ratings for all dolls because they’re PVC. By several accounts, they test their dolls thoroughly and often for non-allowed substances, and HealthyToys didn’t find levels of these. And if you email Corolle through their website to ask a question (say, about why the things smell so strongly of vanilla and what chemical that scent is, exactly), Beau James, Managing Director for Corolle North America, will call you back and speak to you at length. Even if you’re not a reporter. It’s kind of like being able to speak to an actual farmer at a farmers market about what they spray and why vs. going blindly into a supermarket. Even if there are legal reasons James returns emails via phone calls (as he told me), these nuances make an green-leaning holiday shopper feel better about buying a phthalate-free PVC doll for their kid. PVC is, of course, still an environmental issue (its manufacture and disposal are so un-eco and detrimental that environmentalists refer to it as “poison plastic.”) And sometimes it – even the phthalate free kind – can contain other questionable chemicals (read this interview with Mike Schade from the Center for Health, Environment and Justice at SafBaby.com.)”

I stand by what I wrote. There really is no way for a PVC doll to be a good thing. I far prefer no PVC. And anything that smells strongly of vanilla and maintains this smell over time contains a synthetic chemical fragrance mix of who knows what (there is scary stuff in fragrance) that the company isn’t disclosing. There are plenty of plastic-free baby dolls on the market if your child would like to play with them. There are even ones made of organic cotton and wool.

Every parent makes compromises along the way. I just prefer them to be educated compromises. I’d be lying if I said we didn’t eventually wind up with a plastic baby doll in our apartment, after much arguing. I would prefer not to have it, but a family is made up of more than a mother. It was the first plastic toy we ever had. To this day we have very few. I bought it when I was abroad (my thinking was that there are stricter standards in the E.U. and I happened to be in France), but the thing is still plastic. And once I brought it home, I set some rules, including that I don’t let my daughter sleep with the doll. We also always wash our hands after playing and before eating.

School starts today at loooong last! I don’t even bother shopping for anything until at least a few weeks into school to see what we actually “need” (usually nothing). Well that’s not entirely true. My mom had a tradition of always helping us choose a back-to-school outfit a few weeks before school started so we could get excited and picture what we’d be wearing as we went about the first day. It wasn’t always a new dress. Quite often it was a hand-me-down. So my daughter does have a first grader new dress–thanks to her grandmother–that has been waiting to be worn for about two weeks. I have loving memories of my own first grader first day dress. It was a brown and white gingham number with a red apple on my chest. Ah, the 70s.

On the topic, here’s my most recent post for Elizabeth Street and it’s all about eco-friendly back-to-school shopping. Maybe I’ll take my own advice come October….